Cabinet unrest on files affair

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PREMIER Steve Bracks is facing internal dissent over his
handling of the police files affair, with ministers accusing him of
bypassing cabinet in a bid to protect besieged Police Minister Tim
Holding.

Mr Bracks is also under fire from former senior police for
suggesting that Labor-appointed Police Commissioner Christine Nixon
has been more serious than her predecessors in tackling corruption
in the force.

As Mr Bracks tried to put a lid on the affair yesterday:

■ Cabinet sources accused him of "playing favourites" with
Mr Holding by agreeing after a cabinet meeting on Monday to spend
$50 million to replace the police files system. A similar but
cheaper proposal was rejected last year when Andre Haermeyer was
police minister.

■ Caucus sources from across the factions said Mr Holding,
33, had been exposed as being "not up to the job" and that the
Premier should have demoted or dumped him.

■ Mr Bracks threw his support behind Ms Nixon after she
revealed she had consulted her family and trusted advisers about
whether she should resign over the affair.

■ Former assistant commissioner of internal investigations
Bob Falconer told The Age he was "disturbed" by Mr Bracks'
suggestion that only when Ms Nixon was appointed commissioner did
the force mount a serious assault on corruption.

Mr Bracks announced after cabinet's meeting on Monday that the
LEAP computer database  which holds more than 5 million names
and the files of about 70,000 offenders  would be replaced at
a cost of about $50 million and managed by a new watchdog, the
Commissioner for Law Enforcement Data Security.

He said the new system was needed after two recent incidents:
files on about 400 people were mistakenly sent to a woman in
country Victoria in June and files on about 1000 people were
mistakenly sent to a prisons whistleblower in July.

At a media conference on Monday afternoon, Mr Bracks said the
decision had been made on advice from the Department of Premier and
Cabinet and the Justice Department.

Asked who had overseen the proposal in cabinet, Mr Bracks
responded that he would never comment on cabinet deliberations, but
it would be accurate to say the decision had the support of "the
Government".

But cabinet sources said yesterday that Monday's regular cabinet
meeting had not received or discussed any submission about a new
police files system.

They said a similar proposal under Mr Haermeyer in the first
half of last year had not been accepted, and that the Government
had failed to act in March this year when the Office of Police
Integrity recommended that the LEAP system be replaced.

"We prop up some ministers and bury others," one source said,
referring to Mr Holding and Mr Haermeyer.

The Age believes that Mr Bracks made his decision after
leaving cabinet about 11.30am and reading a police report on the
latest privacy breach. He consulted several ministers, including
Treasurer John Brumby, before making the public announcement at
1.45pm.

Some Labor backbenchers have also privately criticised Mr Bracks
for standing by Mr Holding, who was promoted to the police
portfolio at the start of the year.

One MP said Mr Holding had been promoted too far too soon, and
the Government would continue to suffer because his department
would now be "out to get him".

The affair was raised at a caucus retreat in Hastings yesterday,
with Mr Bracks telling MPs that the Government had worked hard to
deal with the prob- lem and would now move on and refocus on
broader policy matters.

Meanwhile, Ms Nixon revealed yesterday that she had contemplated
stepping down over the most recent breach of police files security,
after conceding she had been briefed about the issue a month ago
but failed to act.

She decided against resigning because she was not entirely to
blame, she said. While a briefing note given to her last month had
warned that "some" information had been released, she was told the
files had been retrieved and the problem resolved.

"I came to the point that I didn't think I'd done anything that
was wrong and, yes, I could have had more warning bells but, then
again, the advice I got could have been better as well," Ms Nixon
said.

Despite declaring he no longer had faith that police could
manage the privacy of the files, Mr Bracks said yesterday Ms Nixon
retained his full confidence.

In comments that angered former senior police, Mr Bracks praised
Ms Nixon for tackling problems such as alleged police corruption
and organised crime, while adding: "I think there's always been a
propensity in the past not to be full and frank and open about some
of these matters, and I'm glad we have a commissioner who's
prepared to face things head-on."

Mr Falconer, who was chief commissioner in Western Australia
from 1994 to 1999 after many years at senior levels of Victoria
Police, told The Age: "I find the Premier's comments about
the past disturbing."

He said it was important that due credit be given to "the
attempts  with much less legislative authority than exists
now  to tackle the issues of police corruption in those
previous times".

The Police Association and the State Opposition yesterday
declined to express confidence in Ms Nixon.